I was reminded today. In a world that is so busy, busy, busy, that it has no time to reflect on what it is doing – and I am talking of the world of mankind of course, the world of nature simply going along at its own natural pace (where that has not been interfered with by the crossing paths of a frenetic people) – there is no time allocatable for such things as remembering, such things as taking stock of where things are at, such things as looking for an overview of current positions. Simply a plunging for ever forward into the dim reaches of future times, guided only by a perceived outline of something nebulously dreamed of or hoped for. Does that not reasonably describe the position of our world, the world of man over the past century or so? Faster and faster goes the merry-go-round. Technology driven, with continuous technological ‘advancements’ built on the burial grounds of the previous ‘advancement’. And no-one now even knows where to locate the ‘STOP’ button.
We need reminding. And like I said, I was reminded today. Fortunately, my personal world is no longer so busy that I can’t take time for a reminder. Fortunately also that there are others who are still similarly positioned. And we have something to say.
Whether that which we say will ever be heard, I think will not stop us from saying it. If it is heard, or at least listened to, whether or not it has any impact on the whirligig, uncontrolled spinning of the human machine is entirely another question. Nevertheless, I am going to say it.
I read today, and watched on The Titanic Lifeboat Academy – A good spot to flock together – a video called ‘What is a Sustainable Population?‘ – which I am embedding here directly from YouTube. OK, I know the words ‘population’ and ‘sustainable’ are both huge turn-offs, ripe for dismissal as ‘not your thing’, but hey!, it was ‘World Population Day’ recently (not sure exactly when – I’m not big on ‘special’ days, including birthdays), so come on, take a break, have a look.
It’s the usual boring standard presentation by some old grey-haired guy with a beard – hint: even I mostly skipped my way through it just pausing to read the pictures – and, if even that is beyond your interest level, I can tell you the answer to the question without taking the bother to watch. It is somewhere between 1 and 2 billion humans. In other words about a quarter of our current global population. But, come on, this is important. Give the man a fair go, listen to what he says. It does make sense. We are not as intelligent as we like to think we are.
Now, there is nothing new here (remember I said it was a reminder) since I and numbers of others have been saying that for at least 8-10 years now. You won’t hear that in any official commentary of course. It is not a palatable prognosis. But that doesn’t mean it is not true. We must reduce our numbers by at least 6 billion people, and soon.
I think the basis for that, at least in my own cognition, is that this was the level of humanity’s extant numbers at around the time when industrialism first kick-started what has since steamrollered into what I describes as today’s apparently unstoppable merry-go-round of so-called ‘progress’. And that was the last time the Earth systems could be said to be acceptably and sustainably harvested for mankind’s needs. Since that time, approximately the nineteenth century, humanity’s growth has been unstoppable, and peaking in the late twentieth century when we started borrowing from the future by using more than the planet could annually provide. ‘Unstoppable’ that is, unless we accidentally or on purpose reboot the system through some unimaginable nuclear holocaust or the same effect is brought about as a result of our continued path which will undoubtedly lead to the same effect at some stage. Or indeed that same effect produced by some outside natural intervention, with or without our assistance. Like I said, we are not intelligent enough to unilaterally engineer a desirable solution by ourselves. Although certain ‘philanthropical’ elitists, the mega-rich, mega-corporatists among us may be hatching a plan to achieve that result in their own way – perhaps eugenically and subversively beginning with the bio-engineered so-called virus and vaccine programs associated with COVID-19 (???) n’est-ce pas? The basis is certainly there. It is in their WEF manifesto. We are to them just ‘hackable rats’.
But I digress and, before I lead you too far down the rabbit hole, I want to present some of my past posts on the subject.
The first I think you will find very interesting. It is from 2015 and presents a beautiful story and imagery in the form of the parable of ‘Lord Man’ in book form. The book surprisingly is still available in online form, its pages and spectacular images viewable full-screen. There is a ‘wow-factor’ here, that still impresses. There is no mention of the 1-2 billion there. It talks of 10 billion and the current (at the time) 7.3 billion together with the problems that posed. It is slightly out of date in that the frontispiece is a graph of population rise projected to reach 8 billion by 2025. We now know of course that the figure of 8 billion is just now less than 18 months away in December 2022. Time moves on. And there is no slowing of population growth, at least 80+ million net new folk added to the total every year on average for the past 4 decades. One billion every 11-12 years. Just a thought.
Find the book here on my blog: A Gift For Any Season
Here is one from 2016 and not in any way out of date. In fact my forecasts still hold good: Time-Line Relevance to a Clear View The post references my Facebook page which no longer exists but the FB post is included in full so nothing lost. It contains a very interesting vertical historical time-line (they are mostly presented horizontally) of man’s journey from the last ice-age, which I also quick-ref here: A Timeline of Earth’s Average Temperature Since the Last Ice Age Glaciation – I think most folk would enjoy tracing that journey. It is quite eye-opening.
Finally here is one that doesn’t say much, just simply states – like the grey-haired, bearded old man on the video said – the greatest problem facing mankind today is not climate change but over-population. My post on this is: Missing The Point, Again. Why? again from 2015. It refers to an academic written piece titled “If everyone lived in an ‘ecovillage’, the Earth would still be in trouble.“
I will just leave you with the thought that, one way or another, your children, your children’s children, and most likely even yourself, should prepare for a very foreshortened future. Things are not going to be so bright and easy as in even the current hell-hole of a world we have created today. Far from it.
Not Something Else 
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